It’s not all about red double decker buses, union Jacks and warm beer. It’s more about the great hospitality of the new cafes scene in London Town that’s caffeinating and entertaining this vibrant World city. You don’t have to look too hard now in London for a great coffee and an excellent café experience. Every Borough has a collection of unique cafes and espresso bars offering great coffee and fine dining styled café meals. We found some amazing cafes and roasters from the centre of London, right out into the outer suburbs.
London is a city of nine million people of diverse cultural backgrounds and has many flavours of food and beverages from around the world at an easy reach. There is one group of people who are dominating the café world, and it’s Australians and New Zealanders. This bunch of Southern Hemisphere invaders are blitzing their profitable café model throughout the whole UK.
Many of the cafés we visited had an Aussie or Kiwi connection, with the owners being from “down under”, bringing their café model into the old dart. And there were plenty of young adventurous baristas on their two-year work visa, spending their time abroad behind the espresso machine – not unlike their fathers and mothers, who poured warm beer at a pub a few decades before them.
We have hilighted some great businesses that we visited during our two week stay; we were welcomed with open arms everywhere we went, which is nice when you are a long way from home.
Our first coffee experience was at Nude Coffee in the famous Brick Lane, Shoreditch – a grungy suburb full of real hipsters and those wanting to be hipsters. Nude Coffee Roasters have an espresso bar on one side of the cobbled street and the other side is their roastery. Many of the staff are Aussies, and the coffee was as excellent as their café breakfast menu. Not far away we met fellow Aussie Alice, who runs a small café called Bell Boi. On chatting with her over a well made Allpress Coffee, she told us that Bell Boi was set up as front of house for a booming Air BNB business. Alice and her husband have set up thirty plus properties in their rental empire. They are both professional dancers and have had an impressive career travelling the world with their passion for dance and theatre.
Crossing a few blocks, we found New Zealand export Ozone Coffee, where we were blown away by their amazing concept. The place was packed and the food was world class – we were lucky enough to get a seat in this bustling café. With a full open kitchen in the funky warehouse space and a roasting business in the basement, you can watch all the action from the open landing above. The business is packed with Kiwi and Aussie staff, who all know the business and are in full control of the endless crowds who spill out of their offices in this corporate business district.
Around the corner we visited Lantana Café, one of three café businesses in London that is part of the cool small chain. Lantana is nicely fitted out and has originated from the Australian café concepts, named after our most colourful flowering weed. It was created by three business partners who missed their Australian café lifestyle so much, they decided to pool their resources and ideas together to make a home a way from home. One of the owners, Shelagh Ryan, has written a cook book called Café Kitchen promoting the Australian style café food and our diverse culture. The coffee is excellent, and the business is well patronised by visiting Aussies and Kiwis.
The London Kings Cross district is also home to another New Zealand export, Caravan Coffee. We had a personal tour with head roaster Tane Welton. Caravan has three sites, but the Kings Cross site, in the old Granary building, is a super impressive fitout which is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner with a full bar and has a nightly restaurant menu. Caravan is also growing in the wholesale coffee side of the business and supplies many good accounts around the UK. Tane is soon to set up the roastery in another purpose built industrial site to cope with the growing wholesale business.
From there we moved out into the grungy borough of Hackney, where we visited New Zealand and Australian inspired coffee roaster cafés Climpson and Sons. We chatted with general manager Nicole, an Auckland lass who has been with the business for four years and has seen the rapid growth of cafés in London. Climpson and Sons have both cafés and a busy coffee roasting wholesale business supplying lots of cool accounts around the UK and have also expanded into other European markets. The cafés are set up for quick workflow, but are still very comfortable, with lots of locals lounging around in the sunny space.
Just a block away we stopped in on the cool little roasting business called Dark Arts Coffee. We met Brad, another escaping Kiwi, whose passion for coffee and motorbikes are combined in this tiny space underneath a railroad siding. These guys are very cool and have created some wicked vibes with clever videos about their lifestyle choices. They are mostly a wholesale business that opens on weekends as a café.
We stayed at Angel during our time in London, and we were lucky to be a block away from McIntyre Coffee. This was started by Alex Macintyre, who came from good coffee prodigy – Mecca in Sydney. Alex had all the tools, like a Mod Bar and Steam Punk, and in his second pop-up across the road in a shared office space, he has a very sexy single group Spirit. Alex and his team are at the very high end of quality coffee presentation, and the large number of punters who stream through the small café space in the morning is a testament to his cool but slightly geeky business model.
One of London’s fastest growing coffee chains is Grind Coffee, with one of the business partners being Aussie musician Kaz James, from the duo the Body Rockers. We met manager Sam Trevethyem, who spent a few years working in the Melbourne coffee scene and on returning to his homeland, took on the task of expanding the Grind Coffee business model. Sam had a big vision for Grind and has a real passion to be a leader in creating great talent in this emerging industry. They have set up their own training school for all their café staff at their new roasting facility.
The last stop on my coffee and café tour of London was Allpress Coffee roaster, which has been slowly perfected over the years from its birthplace in New Zealand. We received a good reception from business manager Rob Lockyear. The fitout is amazing, with lots of natural light being directed into the roaster café space in the Dalston Lane site. This is one of two sites for Allpress, which also has a cool espresso bar in Shoreditch. Rob said a big focus has been on the wholesale roasting businesses, and they are pitching many accounts all over Europe. The Allpress brand is well represented all over London at some of the better established café and restaurant businesses that focus on quality service. We had some good food treats during our visit and the General Manager, Tony Papas, has definitely tapped into his background of a world class chef showcasing quality food service.
I have to admit we are excited about the changes to the café and coffee industry in London, and we look forward to seeing how the improved business model is working its way through the whole United Kingdom. It’s great timing for us at Café Culture International, as we are setting up a new office in London for some future project works with our café consulting business. Stay tuned, as we keep staying ahead of world trends and assist in making a sustainable future for our very high quality café business model. It’s so nice our industry is not only supplying great products to the world, but some very smart services.
Story by Sean Edwards
